Where is the consistency?

de Villiers, who was batting on 46, began his walk back to the pavilion after having a word with the umpires.

Erm, whatever happened to the umpire's decision being final? And whatever happened to players accepting the umpires word without murmur?

Does dissent mean different things to different people ? In different contexts?

And if not, what is the ICC going to do about this?

Updates:-

International Cricket Council match referee Jeff Crowe visited the Indian dressing room minutes before the game against Australia at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

He wasn’t there to get autographs but to discuss couple of issues with team’s assistant coach Lalchand Rajput.

“Crowe isn’t happy with the time Indian batsmen were taking to get on the field after a wicket fell so he has asked us to make sure that the batsmen crossed each other on the field.” The Australians, it’s believed, had protested with the match referee and he was taking up the issue with the Indians.

Rajput politely reminded Crowe that the Australians too were taking their time and it would be in interest of both teams if they too showed some urgency.

Meanwhile, the Indians want the on field umpires to do away with their white hats when they’re facing Lasith Malinga.

Rajput requested Crowe during the same discussion but the match referee wasn’t willing to listen.

“The batsmen can’t pick the ball coming out from Lasith Malinga’s hand as it comes over the umpire’s hat. We requested him to ask the umpires to wear something of different colour but he says he’s not in a position to do it. Which is a bit strange considering he’s the match referee,” said Rajput.

Malinga, the games only slinger, has befuddled many batsmen with his odd bowling action.
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Jeff Crowe’s seems to have got into a habit of visiting the Indian team’s dressing room. The International Cricket Council’s match referee dropped in during the Australian innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground and asked coach-in-charge Lalchand Rajput to send another pair of wicketkeeping gloves for M S Dhoni.

Dhoni had pulled off a stunning one-handed catch from an Adam Gilchrist inside edge diving to his right and that is when the Australians and the match referee sighted the curved webbings between the thumb and the index finger of Dhoni’s gloves which the match referee perceived is contrary to what Law 40.2 of the game states.

Once Crowe threw the book on the Indians, substitute Praveen Kumar walked out with another pair of gloves with flatter webbing.
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then the equally hot-headed Andrew Symonds was at the centre of a petty outburst.

The batsman, who was criticised by Justice John Hansen for his attitude to the game in the Harbhajan racial abuse hearing, looked to give Ishant Sharma a verbal spray after he was bowled.

The teenager responded verbally and then pointed to the dressing room, which is a breach of the ICC code of conduct.

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Ishant Sharma has been summoned by Match Referee Jeff Crowe for a disciplinary hearing on Monday morning after a face-off with Australian allrounder Andrew Symonds.

Ishant had a heated exchange with Symonds and pointed fingers towards the pavilion after dismissing the Australian allrounder in their tri-series match on Sunday.

Ishant has been charged under Clause 1.6 of the ICC Code of Conduct and if found guilty could be reprimanded or fined up to 50 per cent of his match fee, an ICC spokesman said.

The hearing will be held at the team hotel.

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And now, there are reports on TV that Ishant Sharma has been fined 15% of his match fees.
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Heh!

And do the Australians have to pay tax to the Indian authorities. As Indian cricketers had to recently? All foreign cricketers would be taxed at a flat rate of 10% a surcharge of 3% (10.3%) on their income. They are governed under section 115BBA of the IT Act. Therefore Andrew Symonds, for instance, would take home an amount of $1.21m.
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The Indian Premier League has been putting a lot of traditionalists' noses out of joint. Money is being slung around at a rate unseen since Kerry Packer paid the original World Series cricketers a small fortune to wear those ill-fitting pyjamas. But as the first top-grade cricket competition to remove the increasingly thorny issues of nationality and race from the occasion, the IPL should be welcomed. As with WSC, an avaricious hunt for television dollars may end up benefiting the game immeasurably.

Cricket likes to view itself as being above such tawdry, déclassé concerns as money, of course. Its heritage, supposedly, is of a game played by gentlemen whose only material concern is whether their cups of Earl Grey tea are accompanied by cucumber sandwiches. But we saw in the aftermath of the Sydney Test where the Indian team put enormous pressure on the game's judicial processes to ransom by threatening to return home, those days are finished.

Cricket is the only team sport I can think of where the top players primarily compete at international level. In the likes of football, basketball and baseball, club teams are the day-to-day focus, with occasional breaks for World Cups and other representative contests. But if you're lucky enough to make a Test XI, you'll play pretty much all of your cricket for your country, taking breaks to play for your old club or state team only once in a blue moon. So the contests that matter most are between nations, and given the genuine ethnic diversity of cricket, and the mixed blessings of British colonial heritage, that's a recipe for tensions. Darrell Hair's story shows how easily perceptions of racism can explode in cricket nowadays - it's often forgotten that in the infamous abandoned England-Pakistan Test, the other umpire was West Indian.

And the problem was all too evident in the furious reaction by India to Australia's allegations of racism. The level of anger surely had its antecedents in the days of the Raj, which left Indians with the entirely correct perception that when it comes to racism, they were more sinned against than sinning. And it was not a huge surprise that Australia's holier-than-thou attitude caused so much irritation when it is the major exponent of sledging - sorry, "mental disintegration" in the world game.

But if all goes well, the IPL will deliver, for the first time, cricket that is mercifully free of the lingering resentments created by colonialism. Instead, superstars from different countries will play alongside each other - and harmoniously so, we can only hope. The closest analogy is the European Champions League, a hugely wealthy competition featuring most of the world's best clubs and players. All major European football teams now field teams whose players come from all over the world, and the London club Arsenal regularly fields teams with no English players whatsoever. This leads to criticism from some quarters, but the resulting quality on the field cannot be argued with. If cricket became more of a club-based competition, genuine fans of the game might finally be able to enjoy high-level contests free from the uncomfortable taint of racism and nationalism, and free from the suspicion and resentment that seems to so easily come to head in the modern game.

We've occasionally seen this at club level already, when overseas stars have come to play in first class teams. Warney's exploits in Hampshire are legend, both on and off the field, and Imran Khan played for NSW in 1984/5. But imagine if this was commonplace, and the NSW Blues were full of international stars, and regularly played teams from other countries, each with their own assortment of players from around the world. Australian fans would get a chance to have brilliant players like Sachin Tendulkar playing for their team, rather than always against them. You'd occasionally regroup as nations to play World Cups and Tests, sure, but most cricket would be genuinely free from the baggage of nationality and race. Since Test cricket audiences are dying in much of the world, the longer form of the game could use the excitement of club competition between stars, and this would also solve the huge imbalance of skill between countries like Australia and Zimbabwe. Plus, if cricket became primarily club-based, we'd see a lot less of the Barmy Army, and this alone would make it worth it.

The IPL hasn't even started, and already we've seen the best repudiation of the Andrew Symonds race saga you could hope for. We will probably never know whether Harbhajan actually called him a monkey, or some other unsavoury term in Punjabi. But we do know that the Indian cricket community think he's worth $1.4 million, showing him the respect that ought to be commanded by such an exciting player.

The sheer scale of demographics and an economic boom all point to one thing: the future of cricket lies primarily in India. And the IPL is just an early stage in this. There's potential for conflict with the existing international setup, and scheduling will be an ongoing challenge. But if the BCCI can help to heal cricket by making customary adversaries into teammates, and produce a competition free of the lingering racial tensions that have so harmed the game recently, we should all be thankful.

Did Jaipur know?

Due to my county commitments at Somerset I am unavailable to play in this first year, but I, like everyone else, will be fascinated to see just how big an impact this tournament has.

And, if they did, how many more such "announcements" should we expect from players on the lower end of the IPL food chain?
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David Hussey, the Victoria batsman, may have been purchased for US$625,000 by the Kolkata franchise in the Indian Premier League's auction, but his county side Nottinghamshire have insisted that he is contracted to play for them this season.
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Hello????

Whats with this

The IPL

and why I could care less for the Mumbai franchise.

The Mumbai Ranji Trophy team, culled from players in the Mumbai-Navi Mumbai region, are the true representatives of my fair city.

They are home bred and they have paid their dues in the various age group/city wide competitions before they were eligible for the Mumbai cap.

Unlike other Ranji teams, we dont "import" established Ranji players. Instead, we have done enough and more in sending our finest ( as players and coaches) and enhancing the quality of the other teams in the Ranji Trophy.

Mumbai players understand the city's cricketing culture and they are aware of the city's cricketing history and our varied contributions to Indian cricket.

It is a proud team and a prouder tradition.

What does the IPL have?

Homeboys like Wasim Jaffer and Zaheer Khan will be playing for Bangalore.Rohit Sharma plays for Hyderabad.Ramesh Powar will show up for Mohali while Agarkar will fly Kolkata's flag.(Mercifully, no Mumbaikar is playing for the Delhi team - the sacrilege!)

And in the meanwhile, as a proud Mumbaikar, I am expected to root for Loots Bosman and Harbhajan Singh and Dilhara Fernando!

Even the ICL, with the limited vision of a TV conglomerate, has not been this arrogant.

So, good luck IPL Mumbai (or whatever else they call you).

Good luck trying to shove that team of yours down my throat when you don't represent me or my city. And good luck trying to hawk your merchandise and your TV time to me - I ain't buying!

PS:- Expanding on the thought further
1. There is no concept of free agency in the IPL ( atleast there is no mention of it in the literature I have read thus far)
2. The players cannot make the call on taking a lower salary for staying with the team of their choice. The auction was about the player going to the highest bidder. As regards selections for the rest of the spots, what are the terms of selection for players outside of the catchment areas?
3. Is there a League minimum that is guaranteed to every player, irrespective of team?
4. Trades can be initiated only by the franchise owners after a period of 2 years. What about player initiated trades?
5. Is there going to be a farm system in place to supplement the IPL resource pool? If not, how much money will be diverted by the franchise to the teams in the city/catchment areas for player development?

Go the Huss!

Hello Good Friend

I’m sure you are concerned about all the worlds ills, and you probably wish there was at least one thing you could do.

Well now there is visit cricketwithballs.com and Sign the David Hussey for Australia Petition and you’ll be contributing to world peace.

Vote David Hussey, he will represent you the people.

Interesting

With both Gregory King and John Gloster putting in their papers, the entire Indian support staff will undergo a revamp once new coach Gary Kirsten takes over. According to sources, like his predecessor Greg Chappell, the South African is also looking to set up his his own array of support staff to help him in his task, putting a big question mark over the future of other incumbents.

The resignation of Gloster and King has eased tensions of the board to a great extent, but its major headaches will be with its present assistant coach. Lalchand Rajput is believed to be under severe pressure to extend his contract despite his successful tenure with the Indian team since Twenty20 World Cup. According to sources, Kirsten isn’t in favour of Rajput in his new team and is believed to have formed his opinion after spending a few days with the team during the last two Test matches. Kirsten, however, has indicated that he’s fine with Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh.

Though the board has handed out a one-year contract to Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh till the end of April this year, it remains to be seen how the board will proceed thereafter. Prasad has hit the headlines for helping a young Indian bowling side to some spectacular victories in the last eight months, while Robin Singh has been a quiet achiever in his domain . It’s believed that while finalising of his contract, Kirsten had only spoken about brining in a mind doctor to help the team.

There indications to Surrey’s Neeraj Patel, who worked with the Indian team during the England Test series, is tipped to take over as the next Indian team physio while South Africa’s Shyamal Vallabjee is among the favourites to join as the team trainer. Vallabjee, who has worked with Mahesh Bhupathi in Bangalore was also here when Kirsten came over and since then there has been speculations about him joing Kirsten’s team after BCCI didn’t renew contracts of King and Gloster that expired last December.

So, what of this?

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has set March 12, 2008 as the qualification deadline for the top eight teams for the Champions Trophy to be held in Pakistan in September this year, an ICC official told Daily Times here on Thursday.

and this

CRICKET Australia would face a player revolt if it agreed to tour Pakistan next month.

While the tour remains extremely doubtful because of increasing security concerns, most of Australia's senior players have made it privately clear they would pull out of any visit to the strife-torn country should it proceed.

The last Test Australia played in Pakistan was this one. In 1998/99.

Given their reluctance to tour Pakistan this time around, I wonder what stance the ICC will take if CA expresses a similar reluctance when the Champions Trophy comes around?

PS:- On a tangential note, for all the carping around of the Indians undermining the authority of the ICC, here is something to consider -

Australia did not tour Zimbabwe despite being required to do so under the FTP.
AUSTRALIA has postponed a two-Test series against Bangladesh because it clashes with the Beijing Olympics.
The current Australia tour to Pakistan is in jeopardy.

So, Australia has canceled, is canceling or is postponing scheduled tours with 3 of the remaining 9 Test playing nations despite being required to do so under the FTP.

And then there was the "request" to reduce the number of tests with India this October by 1. And the proposal to play a 6 test Ashes series with England.

So, I ask you, who is showing the ICC the finger now?

The crisis

So, cricket now has an umpiring crisis. With Simon Taufel set to consider "options" after his contract expires with the ICC and Darrell Hair, Rudi Koetzen and Steve Bucknor in the doghouse for various reasons, cricket finds itself with a dearth of "quality" umpires.

And I say, whats the big deal?

For the longest time now, cricket has had to live with very ordinary standards of umpiring.

People blame technology, but what about the over crowded cricket calenders, the minuscule pool of "Elite" umpires and the stress and fatigue of travel and officiating high pressure games, day in and day out?

The IPL has exacerbated this issue because, for the first time in a long time, the umpires, like the players, have options.

Options to make more money over a shorter duration of time. And while the stress levels may be the same or elevated, it will be over a very short span of time unlike in current circumstances.

I, for one, am glad that we have this crisis. For two reasons

1. Given the tugs and pulls of corporate driven tournaments, there will be a demand for high quality of officiating - if I have sunk in 40 million dollars in a bloody franchise and I get short changed because some duffer in a white/black coat muffs up, there will be hell to pay. Which means that there will be more accountability, transparency, technology and much higher standards when it comes to officiating.

2. The ICC has, in the past years, looked up to individual boards to supply umpires to constitute the Elite panel. There has been no push, and no investment, whatsoever to expand the panel and/or force individual Boards to provide a fixed number of umpires of a certain standard.

Hopefully, this crisis will force the ICC to introspect and hopefully, the IPL, because of what is at stake, will do everything possible to ensure that the standard of umpiring is right up there.

I expect to see a lot more gizmos and a lot more experiments to come in to aids umpires in the coming days. And I also expect greater number of people to take up umpiring because of the remuneration involved. And, if the ICC can be pro active about it, an expanded Elite umpires pool with a greater percentage of correct decisions per umpire rather than the standard "95% right across the board" bandied out by Dave Richardson.

Three worries

India lost a rain affected match against Sri Lanka yesterday. That, in itself is no cause for worry. India had to lose a match or two in the CB series ( over 11 games, maintaining a clean sheet against the World Champions and the runners up is a huge huge ask). And it is best that we lost a game where we had little control of the variables.

First, no one was quite sure when the game would start and what its length would be. Then, the Indians did not quite figure out how to pace their innings. And when they did reach a competitive score, rains interfered once again - a Twenty over shootout turned the game decisively in Sri Lanka's favor.

That said, India could have done some things better - Sreesanth needs to control his bowling lengths better, India needed to be a little more nimble with their thinking.

But there are 3 concerns that over-ride India's performance and which could have been addressed if India had won yesterday. They are ( in no particular order)

1. Yuvraj Singh's form - 39 runs from 10 innings in Australia is a worry.

2. Lack of batting opportunities for the middle and lower orders - Robin Uthappa on down, the batsmen have had only one hit in the middle in 4 games. While it is a good thing that India has not collapsed spectacularly while batting and hence havent had the opportunity to test their batting, it does not help if half the batting lineup does not get any batting whatsoever during match situations.

3. The bench strength. An India win yesterday could have allowed us to play Raina, Tiwary, Praveen Kumar, Dinesh Karthik and Piyush Chawla over the two games at Adelaide. Instead, India has to now focus on winning the next couple of games to stay in contention - and even if they do, it will be a huge leap of faith to play the bench in the last two games with the finals round the corner (not wanting to disturb a winning combination and all that - something that cost us in the ODI series against England).

Plenty to ponder for India over this week.

A deserved win

and one full of character.. The Sharma boys led the way with the ball and the bat. Everyone in the Indian team chipped in and were well led.

Kudos and enjoy the win, but the job is not yet complete.

Darren Berry on batting

a brilliant piece, reproduced here in full ( I especially liked his take on the impact of Twenty20 on cricketing skills - and I completely agree).

People say that Twenty20 is destroying the future of bowlers in the game. I disagree. This fast-food approach to cricket is destroying batsmen more than bowlers.

A few weeks ago, the Victorian 2nd XI played NSW in Melbourne and lost convincingly. One batsman aside, the rest played without purpose or accountability. After the match, I spoke to the group, but really I was talking to the young batting group about their sub-standard performance. I used the analogy that batting was like driving a car. And said that, like manual gearboxes, tempo batting was sadly becoming a thing of the past.

Batting with any sort of process and logic has been thrown out the window and old-fashioned slogging has become the norm in all forms of the game. A carefree approach of all-out attack has become a disturbing trend across the country.

Victoria has some super-talented young batsmen but the likes of Aiden Blizzard, Robert Quiney and Aaron Finch like only to work in overdrive. They are exciting to watch but rarely go the distance. They are made for the Calder Thunderdome, where speed is the ultimate concern. Put them at Bathurst and they would struggle to navigate the bends, hills and gear changes required to be still going at the end.

Starting your innings should be like starting your car in the morning - it takes some warming up. You must start slowly and proceed with caution during the early stages of your journey. Once the old choke is pushed in you may proceed into second gear. But still, you must watch the wicket, the bowler, the outfield, the field placings and construct an innings accordingly. If you have passed the first set of traffic lights you can slip up into third gear and start playing some controlled shots, accumulating runs as you go. Occasionally, you may get a break in the traffic and can quickly shift up into top gear, cracking a couple through the covers.

When the runs are flowing, this driving caper can suddenly appear pretty easy. Then all of a sudden there's a bowling change, the new bowler is hitting a line and length and, like hitting a red light, you'll need to come down through the gears. Cricket is all about tempo; the smart player obeys the red light and pauses for a moment before accelerating again. Most of the modern players are getting caught by the red-light cameras trying to run the gauntlet on amber.

I'm sure the young players thought I'd lost my marbles as I delivered my driving-the-manual-car story. Most, if not all of them, drive automatics. While handbrake starts on a hill still haunt me, the youth of today wouldn't even know what they are. And nor, it appears, do they worry about starting their innings in first and second gear. They're for old grannies.

Old grannies such as Brad Hodge, Victoria's most experienced player, who showed last Wednesday night at the MCG that to be successful, you must be able to bat through all the gears. Hodge has struggled in recent times with form and footwork. He walked to the middle after the loss of an early wicket - Blizzard, who is running short of demerit points and may soon have his licence suspended.

Hodge was stuck in first gear for ages but he persisted and finally was able to move into cruise control. Hodge was playing his 100th one-day game for Victoria - the first to do so - and showed his class, moving up and down in tempo according to the situation. In the end, he guided Victoria into the grand final with an unbeaten century. His more inexperienced batting partner, Cameron White (who also still prefers the Thunderdome to Bathurst) played equally well and is starting to realise the benefits of working up through the gears.

As I drove home from that second XI game, I wondered, like all coaches do, if I'd lost the boys that day or had I helped them to become better players? As I pulled up at a set of traffic lights, my mobile phone beeped. It was a text message from two of the young players driving home. They were stuck at a level crossing with the boom gates down and texted me to ask, cheekily, what they should do?

I wrote, 'Stay patient and wait for the right time to accelerate with caution'. In other words, take a single, get to the non-strikers end. Alternatively, smash through the boom gates like most of our young batsmen and get cleaned up by the train in the process. I hope they got my message.

A tale of two ODIs

26th November 2006 and 10th February 2008. Two ODIs. Both played in the southern hemisphere. Both featuring India.

Our bowling line up then

Zaheer Khan
Ajit Agarkar
Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble
Harbhajan Singh
Sachin Tendulkar

Our bowling now

Sreesath
Ishant Sharma
Irfan Pathan
Harbhajan Singh
Virender Sehwag
Yuvraj Singh
Sachin Tendulkar

Our opponents then - South Africa
Our opponents now - Australia

Then, South Africa were 76/6 in the 20th over. Now, Australia were 92/6 in 25.2 overs.

Then, South Africa ended up at 274/7. Now, Australia were all out for 159.

The difference? The captaincy.

Yes, the bowlers bowled well and yes, we held on to our catches.But in the end, it was the captaincy that stood out - MS Dhoni's reading of the game was spot on.

Yes, he may have bowled Sehwag for one over too many and maybe he could have pulled in his field instead of having 3 in the deep when the spinners came on, but his field placings and his bowling rotation was brilliant.

If India go on to win here at Melbourne, the ghost of the Newlands ODI will finally be laid to rest.

Youth and experience

Since we are a young and inexperienced team, here is a suggestion -

India's ODI itinerary for the year 2008 looks like this

Tri-Series in Australia (Aus, Ind & SL) ( min 8, max 11 games)
Tri-Series in Bangladesh (Ban, Ind & SA) ( probable min 6, max 7 games)
The Asia Cup ( min 2, max 6 matches)
versus Zimbabwe ( 3 games)
versus Sri Lanka ( 5 games)
versus England ( 7 games)
versus Pakistan ( 5 games)

Effectively, India plays between 36 and 44 ODIs in the year 2008.If I were Dilip Vengsarkar or MS Dhoni or both, I would persist with the same group of players ( give or take a Yusuf Pathan) that is currently doing duty in Australia through all of these games.

The advantages are two fold

1. The sheer number of games gives us a bigger sample data to make judgments on which players are long term investments versus flashes in the pan.

2. We are playing just about all the cricketing nations in the world, barring New Zealand and the West Indies in this period. Also, we will be playing in all the four countries hosting the World Cup in 2011. By playing in different conditions and against varied opposition over the course of one year, judgments made will be quantifiable and intelligent instead of vague and speculatory.

The tangential advantage I see is that if changes have to be made before the New Zealand tour, the selectors will also have data available from the Ranji Trophy which will have commenced in October/November, thus leading to an informed selection.

Also, this whole youth versus experience debate is nonsensical in my view. What India wants is for two things to happen

1. In the immediate term, identify and groom a team that gives us the best opportunity to lift the World Cup at the Wankhede in 2011

2. In the long term, identify and nurture players who will be the backbone of the Indian lineup and who can make the seamless transition from ODI to Test cricket.

And if we do not start now, 3 years and a bit before the World Cup commences, we will end up repeating history.

And surely,this must have been the biggest lesson learnt from the disaster that was the World Cup 2007.
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On Yuvraj Singh - if I were the Indian think tank, I would jettison the move of playing him at 4 for the next couple of games atleast. And here's why -

Yuvraj lacks both form and confidence. And the longer time he has at the crease, the more time he has to think about his lack of form . And the more time the opposition has to remind him of his lack of form.

What Yuvraj needs is not time but a dose of confidence. And for that reason, I would not bat him any higher than with 5-7 overs left in the game.

Get out there, swing the willow, connect a few, run hard between the wickets and, through all this, keep the brain in the freezer.

Do this a couple of times and the form and the confidence will be back. And if not, there is always Manoj Tiwary.